Tale of Gaius
by OuijiBoardofDeath
Summary: 13-year-old Gaius Blake has just taken his first steps into the world as a pokemon trainer. With great aspirations in his heart, he sets out to collect badges and forge a powerful bond with his pokemon.
1. Prologue

Leaving home is never easy. I love my mother and my father and my baby brother dearly, and they love me. Leaving love is never easy.

However, there comes a time for every one, when we must go away from those we treasure, to broaden our horizons. As comfortable as a loving home may be, we must never allow ourselves to stagnate. So, on a warm day in early fall, I stood on the doorstep of my childhood home, saying goodbye to my mother at thirteen years of age. She cried but didn't try to stop me; she would never do me such harm as to try to keep me to herself.

"Don't cry, Mom," I said, and she wrapped her arms around my shoulders.

"Don't worry, Gaius," she said. "I'm crying with joy. You've grown so much… There's so much ahead of you. I'm happy for you, baby. Maybe you'll follow in your father's footsteps and become a great Pokemon Ranger."

I nodded. "Maybe," I said. She hugged me tightly.

"Do your best, Gaius," she said. "Always do your best."

"I will."

"And don't you ever, ever get discouraged," she said, kissing me on the forehead.

"Never, Mom," I said.

"It's going to be hard, baby," she told me. "Never let it get you down. I love you, baby."

"I love you, too," I said. "Bye, Mom."

She pulled me close and kissed me again on the forehead before letting go of me. I turned, but hadn't taken a step before she called out, "Wait! Gaius, I want you to take this with you."

I looked toward her to see her holding out a pokeball. "What is this?" I asked, taking it and rolling it in my hand.

"Be safe," she told me with tears in her eyes. Gently, she pressed my hand and the pokeball in it against my chest. "I'll see you soon."

I nodded and started away, down the little street of packed bricks. From the doorway, she waved to me and baby brother came out and waved to me as well. I was going to try hard and do my best for his sake—so that he'd have someone to protect him and look up to, since Dad was always away. Someone to guard him… For his sake, I had to be the best I could possibly be. Anything short of that would be failing him.

So I started down the road, pokeball clenched to my chest, vowing to never fail my baby brother. The streets stretched out before me full of promise and sorrow in equal measure.

It's hard to separate from the person you love the most. It's hard to turn away from the comfort of knowing and face mystery. How would I fare? Who would I meet along the way? When would I see the people I love again?

Leaving home is difficult. But it is the refuge of the weak to huddle close to the things that they know and never step outside and try to better themselves.

In this way, in this mind, I took my first honest steps into the world.


	2. Wherein Roots are Planted

"Quenelle, stop!" I shouted. "Quenelle, _stop!_"

But Quenelle didn't stop. He kept right on running, with me on his back, holding onto his horns as tight as I could and digging my knees into his sides, hoping beyond hope not to fall down underneath his hooves. Quenelle had belonged to my mother since she was a girl—that's what she told me, that she had gotten him as a child—and though he was very loyal to her, he didn't care much for anyone else.

Which begged the question of why she'd give him to me in the first place.

My mom had taught us how to ride the tauros, and I had been fairly good at it. But that was always under her watch, and Quenelle had always behaved very tamely when my mom was watching. But my mom was in Goldenrod, a long way away now, and without her it didn't seem that Quenelle had any intention of behaving in any reasonable way. I had climbed onto his back in a moment of desperation when my cyndaquil had fainted and, surrounded by wild pokemon, Quenelle wouldn't fight. He had galloped off, and hadn't stopped—faster and faster and faster. No matter how I screamed for him to stop, the tauros ran on.

"Quenelle! Stop, Quenelle! Stop!" I yelled uselessly, my face pressed into his wooly mane as, just behind me, he cracked his three tails like whips. I squeezed my eyes shut and gripped his horns hard, until the blood rushed out of my knuckles, leaving them white. I could feel the blood pounding in my head and I could feel my heart beating wildly in my chest as my breath grew more and more rapid. "Stop! Stop! Stop!"

But he didn't stop. He snorted and charged along faster, and I began to shake on his back. My body was becoming sore from the effort of holding on, and I was certain that, at any moment, I would fall off. My palms were sweating and I was losing my grip on the powerful pokemon's horns. "Stop!" I cried out, my voice breaking. But, as before, it did me no good. The pounding of Quenelle's hooves, the beating of my heart—all of it was becoming overpowering, and I felt like I was sinking. Any minute, I thought, I would pass out from fright, and if that were to happen it would surely be the end of me. My body would go limp and I would slide down the sloped back of the tauros. If I were lucky, I'd hit the ground straight off and simply break some of my bones and scrape away some of my skin. Likely, though, I wouldn't fall straight behind him but, rather, to the side. If that were to happen, I'd break my bones hitting the ground, and then maybe get my limbs mangled as they fell beneath Quenelle's charging hooves. In the worse case, my whole body would roll beneath him, or maybe my head would fall into his path. The more I thought about it the weaker I felt. My stomach turned over inside of me as I tried to put the thought out of my mind, but it kept coming back—images of blood and cracking bone. I closed my eyes tighter as I began to cry, and feebly whispered, "Stop."

I could hear people yelling to move out of the way, and by that sound I knew that we were passing very quickly through a town. "Stop," I pleaded. "Quenelle, stop—someone's going to get hurt! Can't you hear me? Don't you care?"

I heard a boy cry out over the general noise, "Elara!"

"Octavian, keep back!" a female voice said. "Berend!"

Beneath me, Quenelle jerked violently as he collided with something. My hands slipped off the tauros' horns in the impact and I fell sideways off him as a cry passed my lips. Opening my eyes, I saw an ursaring with its hands on Quenelle's shoulders, struggling to keep him still. And then, there were arms around me. Someone caught me as I fell, and we both hit the ground. I sat up quickly and moved off the other party. "Th-thank you," I said, turning to look at the one who had saved me. My eyes widened to find that it was a gorgeous young woman—quite a bit older than me—with dark hair and a cheerful demeanor. Her hair was cut short and she wore very boyish clothes, but everything about her was the very definition of 'woman' all the same. She smiled at me, and my whole mind went blank.

"Don't mention it," she said. She turned her face toward Quenelle, who was thrashing about as the ursaring tried to hold him still. "Perhaps you should recall him?"

I nodded and held up the tauros' pokeball. "Quenelle, return!" I said. With a flash of light, the pokemon disappeared. I looked back to the woman. "Thank you so much. I thought he'd never stop running."

"Yeah," said the girl standing up. She held her hand out to help me and I took it. "He looked determined to keep on going. It's a mighty big pokemon for such a little boy."

I rubbed the back of my neck. "Y-yeah," I said lamely. A boy of about my own age came jogging over, his dark hair bouncing on his brow with every step. He was, like the woman, strikingly beautiful.

"Elara!" he said, hugging the woman around the middle. "Don't do things like that! You could've been hurt!"

"Someone had to help him, though," she told the boy quietly. She turned to me and, smiling, once more offered out her hand. "I'm Elara Sheen, and this is my little brother, Octavian."

I took her hand and shook it. "I'm Gaius Blake," I told her. "It's a pleasure to meet you both."

"What happened to your pokemon?" asked Octavian. I looked at him and he quickly dropped his eyes to the ground. I smiled at his bashfulness.

"Well," I said. "I suppose that's because he isn't really mine. He's my mother's pokemon, actually."

"Your mother's, eh?" said Elara, putting her hands in her pockets. The late afternoon light across her face made her animated expressions all the more vibrant. "So I guess that means you just started out as a trainer, then?"

I smiled and rubbed my neck again. "How could you tell?" I asked. "Heh, to be honest, I only started yesterday."

"Really?" said Elara. "Well, that makes sense, then…"

"Have you been all alone since then?" asked Octavian. "That's kind of sad."

I looked at him and he looked away once again, this time stepping slightly behind his big sister. "How do you mean?" I asked him. He seemed to hesitate to answer.

"He doesn't like being alone and has trouble imagining anyone else could," Elara said smoothly. Her voice was beautiful and even, though, so she kind of said everything smoothly. "He means that it must be lonely."

"It's only been since yesterday," I said, shrugging. "I mean, kind of lonely, I guess, but…" I could see Octavian looking at me again, out of the corner of my eye, but I didn't try to meet his gaze, knowing he'd only look away again. Looking at him indirectly like that I couldn't see his face too well, but he looked sad from what I could tell of his expression. But then, Octavian's eyes always looked sort of sad, and that was something I never did understand.

"So," said Elara, bending down to me. I bit my lip and tried very hard to keep my eyes on her face, with mixed results. "Where are you headed now?"

"I'm not sure," I told her. "I suppose I need to train, but I'm not sure where. And I have a pokemon with me that's fainted, so I guess my most immediate destination is the pokemon center."

"Oh, we just came from there!" exclaimed Elara. "We could show you the way, if you'd like."

"Yes—I'd like that very much," I said, even though I had already been through the town on my way to Professor Elm's lab, and already knew where the pokemon center was. Elara took me by the hand and we started down the street with her brother and the ursaring following behind us.

"Alright," she said enthusiastically. "Octavian is also just starting on his pokemon journey, you see."

"Oh, is that right?" I asked, looking at him. He looked at the ground and mumbled something inaudible.

"He's shy—don't worry about that," said Elara. "We went to New Bark Town together to get him a pokemon, but he hasn't started training it yet. Maybe the two of you could train together? That'd be fun, wouldn't it?"

"What about you? Are you a pokemon trainer, also?" I asked. "This ursaring belongs to you, right?"

Elara nodded. "Mm, that's right!" she said happily. "I have some pokemon, but being a trainer isn't my ultimate goal in life."

"Oh?" I said as we reached the pokemon center and she let go of my hand. I didn't want her to let go. "What is your ultimate goal?"

Elara looked at me and smiled brightly. "That's a secret!" she said. Behind her, Octavian let out a little sigh which was absolutely charming, and made a face which said to me that he had heard this from her before, and maybe too many times.

"Why is it a secret?" I asked. "Is it embarrassing?"

"No," she said. "I just like keeping secrets. It makes getting to know people fun if they have secrets! That's _why_ getting to know someone is fun! If you knew all about someone from the get-go, wouldn't that just suck all the joy right out of it?"

"Yeah," I said. "That makes a lot of sense."

Elara let out a squeal of delight and clapped her hands together. She turned to her brother and grinned. "See, Octavian?" she said. "_He _thinks I make a lot of sense!"

We entered the nice little building with the bright red roof and the automatic glass doors. Within there was a carefully polished waiting room which was mostly empty, and a desk where a woman in a nurse's uniform was seated before a large machine. She greeted us warmly as we approached the counter. "Good afternoon!" she said. "Would you like me to heal your pokemon?"

"Yes, please," I said, pulling my two pokeballs from my belt and handing them to her.

"Very good," said the nurse. "This won't take very look. Have a seat, and I'll call you when your pokemon are healed."

I thanked her and Elara, Octavian and I took a seat around a coffee table in the corner of the room. I sat beside Octavian—a fact which seemed to distress him somewhat. Elara had said he was shy and, indeed, it did seem that way—but not in the way that most shy people were shy. No, Octavian was shy in a different, almost crippling way. It was like he was afraid to ever make eye contact with anyone other than his sister. I looked at him and he blushed and stared determinedly at the floor, as though meeting my gaze might turn him to stone. However, I found this distinctly endearing about him. "You got a pokemon in New Bark Town, right?" I asked him. He nodded. "What did you get?"

"I picked a chikorita," he said, smiling faintly. I liked it when he smiled. A smile looked good on his lips. "Her name is Chunhua, I've decided."

"That's a very pretty name," I said. "I'm sure it's a good choice."

"Thank you," said Octavian, his cheeks reddening. "D-did you name your pokemon?"

"Yeah," I said nodding. "My cyndaquil is named Daryle."

"Daryle," repeated Octavian, raising his face slightly.

"You don't like that name?" I asked.

"No—I do. I like it very much," he said quickly.

Elara laughed. "Chunhua and Daryle," she said. "I hope they become good friends."

I grinned up at her and then at Octavian. "I hope so, too," I said. "And us as well."

The nurse leaned over the counter. "Excuse me," she said. "Your pokemon have been fully healed!"

"Ah, thank you," I said, standing. I retrieved my pokemon from the desk and clipped them to my belt again before turning back to the beautiful siblings. Elara clapped her hands together as she came over to me.

"Wonderful!" she said. "Now we can all go train together!"

"Eh—what happened to your ursaring?" I asked looking around. She looked around as well, her short hair dancing around her ears and face delightfully with the movement.

"He must've decided to wait outside," she said, pouting slightly. When she pouted, her face was even more amazing. "Berend isn't a big fan of people or buildings, you see."

"Berend… He must be really strong," I said. "He was able to stop Quenelle before, and Quenelle's the strongest pokemon I've ever known."

Elara nodded. "Yes, Berend's very strong," she told me. "Like Quenelle isn't really yours, Berend isn't really mine. I received him from someone I know a while back, so he's stronger than any of the pokemon I've trained on my own."

"Who did he belong to?" I asked.

Elara smiled and bent over to me. Lifting one finger she said, "Secret!" Behind her, Octavian sighed.

"Fair enough," I said. "Where should we go to train?"

"The Bellsprout Tower, of course!" said Elara. She grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the door. She pulled me energetically along, but I didn't mind it one bit.


	3. In Which There is Happiness

What do you think of people? I mean, in general, what do you think about them? When you're sitting on the street, waiting for a shop to open so you can get groceries, and people are passing by, what goes through your head?

Me, I love people. All kinds of people. Hell, maybe just _all _people. I don't think I ever hated anyone in my whole life. There have been some people who I've had to hurt—people who were bad for my baby brother, and so they had to be made to leave—but I never really hated them. When I was a little kid, I wanted to be friends with everyone in the world—literally everyone. As I got older, though, I realized that things like that just aren't possible. Even if I love everyone, no one's under any obligation to love me.

It's the same thing with pokemon, really. I loved my pokemon, but neither one cared much for me. Quenelle, at his best, refused to fight and, at his worse, would snort and make a fuss if I so much as looked at him. It was a heartbreaking shame since I loved Quenelle very much, but I understood. I had no badges and so he had no respect for me. Pokemon have warriors' hearts, a lot of them—and certainly Quenelle had a warrior's heart—and so their love must be earned.

Daryle was a different case, however. He simply didn't like me all that much. I first found this out when we reached the Sprout Tower.

"It's shaking," I said as I entered the building with Elara and Octavian. "Why is that?"

"It's been built around an enormous bellsprout!" said Elara, gesturing with her hands. "So the bellsprout moves and the tower moves with it, but never falls!"

I let out a long, low whistle and looked at the huge pillar in the middle of the floor, which was moving almost rhythmically back and forth. "So that's a bellsprout, huh?" I asked. "It's gigantic, certainly!"

"Yup!" said Elara. "I'd guess this is the biggest, oldest bellsprout in the whole world!"

"Amazing," I said, putting my hand on the shifting pillar.

"The only question that remains about it," said Octavian quietly. "Is why they built a tower around a bellsprout in the first place."

I turned and smiled at him and he blushed and looked down. "I like that," I said to him. "There's something a little mean in there, under the shyness, isn't there? I like that."

He blushed deeper and mumbled something I couldn't understand. Still smiling, I looked back toward the pillar. "It's a good question, though," I said. "Why around a bellsprout? It must've been a lot of trouble."

"The way I heard it," Elara said. "It's because the monks here all use bellsprout."

"But it could vary well be that they use bellsprout because the temple's built around one," said Octavian quietly. He always said everything quietly. He was a very reserved person. Elara was enthusiastic enough for the both of them, I suppose. Either way, Octavian was never very emphatic about anything he did or said;—except in one place, I guess…

"You guys seem to know a lot about this tower," I said, turning to those beautiful siblings. "Is this where you're from?"

"Secret!" said Elara with a grin.

Octavian sighed. "Yes," he said. "We were both born here in Violet city. We've been living in Ecruteak for the last few years, though."

"Why's that?"

"Secret!" said Elara, giving her brother a look which dared him to give this one away.

"Fair enough," I said with a grin. It was more than fair, really—I honestly did like the idea of secrets surrounding these new friends, even if the secrets were self-imposed. "So, if we don't know why they built the tower, perhaps we could find someone to ask. A monk who trains here might know, right?"

"It's a possibility," said Elara. "But who can say? The Sprout Tower's really old. And when things get old, people start to forget all the little details about them. Maybe the reasons why they built this building around this pokemon have been lost to antiquity, never to be known again!" Her eyes looked so dreamy when she spoke about it. Elara had a thing for ancient secrets.

"If that's the case," I told her. "Then we'll work to recover that lost bit of history! Because that sounds like a great way to spend an afternoon!"

She clapped her hands together. "How romantic!" she said. "Archaeology is so _romantic_! Uncovering the mysteries of the past, helping to understand our present and prepare for our future—oh, I'm getting all flushed just thinking about it!"

"Are we still going to train?" Octavian wondered meekly.

"Of course!" said Elara.

"Yeah," I said, and turned toward Octavian, prompting him to look down again. It was a shame I only got to see those beautiful eyes of his out of the corner of my vision. "How about we battle, you and I? Your chikorita and my cyndaquil?"

"O-okay," he agreed hesitantly. He pulled a pokeball from his back pocket and held it forward. "Go, Chunhua."

With a flash, the chikorita appeared before him, flicking the leaf on her forehead back and forth with a cry of, "Chiiiko!"

I smiled and reached for Daryle's pokeball as the chikorita pawed at the ground with her stubby feet, frowning up at me. "She seems eager," I remarked, holding up my own pokeball. "Go, Daryle!"

A beam of red light, accompanied by a whooshing sound, emitted from the pokeball for a brief moment, and then the cyndaquil was before me, his hunched back bursting with flames. Daryle lifted his head slightly but made no sound. Elara laughed and, clasping her hands together behind her back, leaned against the wall. "Guess you can't say the same about yours, huh?" she asked.

"He's just taking it all in," I assured her with a grin.

"Looks like his eyes are closed to me," Octavian mumbled.

"It just looks that way," I said, putting my hands on my hips and leaning forward slightly. "He's super-aware of everything that's happening though, you can be sure of that."

"If you say so," replied Octavian quietly. "Chunhua, tackle!"

"Chiiikoriiita!" spat the pokemon, hurling its little yellow body forward. It collided with my cyndaquil, knocking him backwards. He grunted as he tried to recover his balance.

"Daryle, leer!"

The cyndaquil scowled at Chunhua and an involuntary shudder ran across her spine. She took a half step backward and glanced up at Octavian. "Tackle it again, Chunhua," he said. She nodded and lurched forward at Daryle. As she came at him this time, he stepped out of the way, and she went right past him. I shouted for Daryle to attack with his own tackle and he threw himself at her, knocking her back with his shoulder. Chunhua winced but didn't back down.

"She's a good pokemon," I told Octavian approvingly. "You picked a real firecracker, there!"

Octavian nodded meekly, and said to the chikorita, "Use growl!"

"Daryle, tackle!"

Chunhua planted her stubby feet firmly and scowled. She let out a low growl which started deep in her chest and Daryle regarded her wearily. He arched his back and, after a moment of hesitation, tackled her. They exchanged a few blows, tackling one another over and over, until finally Octavian's chikorita gave a cry and fell to the ground fainted. Octavian frowned and recalled her before quietly putting his pokeball away. I beamed at him and said, "Good fight! I didn't think we were going to beat you, actually."

Elara threw her arms out wide. "I thought it was a wonderful fight from both of you!" she exclaimed merrily.

"Yeah," mumbled Octavian, looking down. My smile faded.

"I'm sorry," I said. "Are you upset?"

He shook his head and quickly changed the subject. "I think your pokemon's hurt pretty bad. You should probably give him a potion."

"Ah, right," I said, kneeling down and pulling a potion from my belt. I reached out my hand to the cyndaquil. "Come here, Daryle."

Daryle looked up at me and glared with such disgust at me that I felt my stomach turn over. He turned away from me and walked a few paces off as the flames on his back receded, leaving me blinking after him. Elara put her hands on her hips and tilted her head. "That's strange," she said. "You got him from the professor, right? Pokemon don't usually act so coldly toward their first trainer."

"He's—he's just tired, is all," I said, standing. I pulled up his pokeball and held it out before me. "He's had a big day and he's feeling kind of cranky, I guess. Daryle, take a rest."

With a flash of light, the pokeball pulled him in, but not before he sent one last glare in my direction. I knew that I had just told a lie; Daryle flat-out loathed me completely.

Elara clapped her hands together. "Oh well," she said. "I guess we should head back to the Pokemon Center, then?"

"Oh—not yet," I said. "I wanted to look around the tower a little bit, first!"

"Okay," she said with a smile. Man, I loved that smile of hers. "I think the stairs are over this way; we can check out the floor above this, and maybe find someone to tell us about the tower."

We spent that afternoon looking around the tower, looking around. Elara told me ghost stories about it, giggling all the while. We spoke to one of the monks who trained there about the bellsprout it was built around, but I can't remember if he knew anything else about it. The walls turned a rich red as dusk fell. Giggling, Elara took me to a window on the top floor and pointed out. "Look!" she said, excited. "Look at that sunset!"

I sighed appreciatively. It was the most remarkable sunset I'd ever seen. A heavy, golden light hung across the landscape. The red taint of twilight made everything bellow us seem other-worldly and, yet, at the same time, as if this were the most palpable anything had ever been; it was as if even the air itself were something that could be touched. Dark clouds hung about the horizon, but overall the pink-blue sky was clear. What clouds there were ranged in color from a navy blue in the east to a vibrant spectrum in the west of fuchsias and violets and tangerine-oranges. I looked back to Elara, whose face was shining in the dying light. "Out there," she said softly as Octavian hung back behind us, disinterested. "Out there are so many secrets and mysteries and artifacts and—a whole world! A world that no one knows about anymore, but that's just waiting for someone to find it. I want to be the one that finds it. I want to figure out all the secrets and mysteries of Johto and—and everywhere else, too."

I took her hand. "Then let's get going," I said. She looked at me, wide-eyed. "You can't unravel them from up in a tower, can you?"

She smiled that dashing smile of hers, and this time I pulled her along. I'm always going to remember that day fondly, no matter what happened between the three of us after that. It was a good day; one of those nice, calm days that might've been boring, except that you were with friends. Whatever happened between us after that, I remembered that day and still smiled.

A/N: Eeek! I'm sorry to anyone who was waiting for this chapter that it took so long! I stopped to focus on an original Fantasy story I've been writing, which I hope to start submitting to publishers soon. Speaking of which—if anyone is interested in reading over something I wrote that doesn't have Pokemon in it, and is around 100k words, please to be dropping me a line! I really need a beta reader for this story so that I know it makes proper sense to anyone who isn't me. Anyway, sorry again for the delay on this chapter!


	4. Note

Author's Note: All right—so I've let this story sit for a very long time and I'm sorry to all the people who were hoping I'd update. The fact of the matter is, I haven't had much interest in fanfiction in a while. I'm very sorry to everyone who had an interest in this story, or any of the others I've been writing. I've been focusing, instead, on original fiction and—amazingly—I've gotten a book published! If you liked this story and want to support my original writing, I would be absolutely thrilled. My book is called Dirge for a Necromancer, and there's a link to it on my profile page.

I won't be continuing this story, I'm very sad to say. I hope you all will understand. I just thought I should let anyone who was waiting for an update know that it won't be coming. I'm very sorry.


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